The wait is almost over for fans of one of the biggest game franchises of all time – the trailer for the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto will finally be released next week.

In a post on social media, Rockstar, the makers of the games, simply said: “Trailer 1, Tuesday, December 5, 9am ET” – 9am eastern time is 2pm GMT.

Since being posted on X on Friday afternoon, the announcement has been viewed more than 50 million times.

While it does not mention the game it will be showing, it is widely assumed to be the sixth instalment of Grand Theft Auto.

Rockstar previously teased the trailer in November, saying it would be available this month, but it never said when.

There is still no word on when the game itself might release.

It has likely been in development for several years, but it wasn’t until last year when Rockstar confirmed it was working on the latest instalment of GTA, saying active development was “well under way”.

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GTA V launched in 2013, and saw Michael, Trevor and Franklin’s exploits in Los Santos (modelled around Los Angeles), with players taking part in activities such as driving and shopping, all the way up to heists and assassinations.

Previous settings in the series included the Miami-inspired Vice City and New York-inspired Liberty City.

Read more: GTA V turns 10: The impact and legacy of Rockstar’s biggest game – and why sequel is taking so long

GTA V is the fastest entertainment product in history to make $1bn (£792m), and the most profitable ever made, and has since sold an astonishing 185 million copies – earning publisher Take-Two a reported $8bn (£6.4bn) in revenue.

Last year, early development gameplay was leaked online after a hacker gained access to Rockstar’s Slack channel.

They released 90 minutes of footage after threatening the developer, which showed some of the locations the new game will feature and the two protagonists.

Rockstar Games said on social media at the time: “We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto.

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“At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects.

“We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way.”

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